From the Sidelines

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Bellevue to play for “virtual” national title

December 22nd, 2010 at Wed, 22nd, 2010 at 10:56 am by Joel Willits

Bellevue High School is up for a “virtual” national championship, as the football team has been selected for the annual Massey Virtual National Championship, put together by Gannett’s HighSchoolSports.net and USA Today.

The 64-team playoff will begin in January. Editors from USA Today seed the teams and winners are decided by computer-simulated matchups programmed by mathematician Ken Massey, who created the computer models for the BCS rankings for college football.

The bracket includes 64 teams, 50 state champions and 14 at-large teams. The brackets were posted Dec. 22 on HighSchoolSports.net. Bellevue, seeded No.8 plays No.9 seeded Bishop Gorman of Las Vegas in the first round. Bishop Gorman finished the season 13-2.

The first round will be played Jan. 4, with the winners being announced Jan. 11.

I'm the sports writer at the Bellevue Reporter newspaper. On this blog you'll find extra bits and pieces to stories I've written, observations on events in our area, and a behind the scenes look at what it takes to bring a story together. I'll field questions here, and maybe even ask a few too. I'm a 2007 graduate of the journalism program at Eastern Washington University. Prior to joining the Reporter, I worked at USA Hockey Magazine and did radio work with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox AAA baseball team. When I'm not busy covering the happenings in Bellevue, I enjoy playing hockey, watching sports and spending time with my family. You can also follow me on Twitter or you can send me an email.

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